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The other day I was watching a video with Jordan Peterson in it. If you've ever listened to him, you know that he uses moderately strong expletives every so often while talking. This time though, as he was breaking down a problem, he went to say something about people who live only for temporary pleasure, and just when I thought he was about to use an expletive, he slowed down a bit, and then carefully and thoughtfully described exactly why living only for temporary pleasure is harmful. What he ended up saying was far more insightful and helpful than what I thought he was going to say.

This made me realize one of the core reasons why expletives are harmful. They use a mentally jarring term to gloss over an actual problem. I can say that someone treated me like poop, or I can say what they actually did to me. The latter is far more powerful, honest, and helps people understand what's wrong with something. The former doesn't even give whoever you're talking to a general idea of what's happening. All they know is that you perceived it as negative - they have no idea if that perception is reasonable, what actually happened, or what they should do in response.

#language #jordanpeterson #communication #cussing